Box07It’s that time of year again. Every futurist, or want-to-be futurist, publishes their predictions and forecasting for the upcoming year. Financial trends, marketing trends and my favorite; digital trends.

I have never been a fan of making predictions. So, instead of a prediction, I would rather put forward a challenge for 2015: mentor and lead.

Mentorship

The truth is I have always been on the fence about mentorship. If I needed to learn something I went out, did my homework and figured it out. I learn by doing and making mistakes along the way. But this is not what mentorship is really all about. Mentorship is about building a trusted relationship in order to share your experiences.

This past year I watched Adam Froman, our CEO and chief mentor, guide and share his vision—our vision—for the future of the firm. He holds the bar high but at the same time allows people to come alongside of him. I have watched our two SVP’s, Raj Manocha and Rosalina Lin-Allen, mentor their teams to new heights. And, it does not end with the leadership team.

Mentorship has caught on throughout the firm. Angela Lau (Director of Operations, AskingCanadians) and Yameen Tejpar (Delvinia’s Director of Client Services & Operations Management) are both mentoring their teams from an operations perspective and Roy Gonsalves (Vice President, Sales) is mentoring our AskingCanadians sales team. There are so many examples of people mentoring each other. It is baked into the culture of our company and is one of the reasons why we are seeing growth and success—not to mention it makes the company an amazing place to learn and grow together.

Leadership

You often hear people say the world does not need more leaders, but more doers. Well leadership is about doing. I have a philosophy that I try to live by—success is measured by what you do and not what you say. There are countless books, articles and Harvard Business Review posts on the topic of leadership. I don’t want to debate what makes a great leader. Everyone leads in their own way. But I do see two common traits in all leaders: they act and they take ownership.

As I reflect back on this year, there are numerous leaders that have emerged here at Delvinia and AskingCanadians. Susan O’Neill, our Public Relations Manager, behind the camera capturing those important moments or writing blog posts. She leads by doing. Brianne Cuttler (Delvinia’s Operations & HR Manager) leads by finding killer talent. Craig Tothill (Director, IT & Panel Technology) and Frank Schiraldi (Manager, Technology & Innovation) drive our technical development, and Andrea Reck (Delvinia’s Senior User Experience Lead) leads all of our staff innovation workshops.

Finally, every member of our client service team leads our projects by digging in and finding solutions. The list goes on and on and on.

We are in a state of transformation. Every aspect of business is evolving due to digital disruption. If there was ever a time for leadership, it’s today. So I urge you in 2015 to mentor and lead. There is nothing more human or rewarding than sharing, guiding and helping each other.